Long Gone
by Doll of the Devil
Summary: She sees the glances between them. Lizzie-centered. ElizabethxCiel, SebastianxCiel
1. Chapter 1

**Long Gone**

There are glances.

Glances of flickering eyes and fluttering lashes. Lights that shine so bright, bright, as if the darkness has never been known; never been seen; never been heard.

And she sees them.

Oh, she can see them well. Clear as new polished silver, as the coins the poor dig from the wells.

She pretends to be blind; she wants to be blind.

She wishes she could be vision-less, restore her careful prepared and planned glittering fantasy; crumbled to the ground, covered in dust - to be forgotten, to be lost.

She has taken her part, her role; and a splendid actress she is.

Smiles bright, bright.

Eyes light, light.

Not a care in the world.

She wishes to be what he wants her to be. What he should want her to be. He should!

She has prepared.

And she can fight. She can obtain her victory; with sharp-edged swords, the swish-clash drawing of blades; with poses, and passes, and step-by-step in place.

She can fight.

She can fight a man; a woman; the living, the death.

She can not fight the demon who lurks inside, sweeps up behind. She can not compete with a monster.

He is a hunter in the dark night.

To steal, pursue, reap. To take what belongs to her.

What should belong to her!

What she has fought for, lived for, but never secured. What she had believed to have lost when it ceased it rapid - so terribly rapid - beating in fear of horrors of the world; what she had regained - hoped to regain - when it had been a twirl, a twist, a spurt - a truth unspoken even in the dark, that had given it back its famous cherry-gleam shade, its pulse, its will.

But the hunter had been quick; faster than the eye – eye, eye, only one – could see. He holds it close to him, the prize, like a jewel placed in box, to which she had no key.

She has lost.

But she pretends. She has taken her part, her role; and a splendid actress she is.

And she will stand beside, aside to him. For all she wishes is a turn of those lips, a movement she can not give.

He can.

She has lost.


	2. Chapter 2

Long Gone, part II

**I. There are glances.**

As she sits at the large, broad table situated expertly in the middle of the dining room, toying with her breakfast and pretending she posses the highest of spirits, she cannot help but glance over at the two of them.

Master and butler.

They may as well have their own language, the young woman figures, as they speak with glistering eyes and fluttering looks; and she cannot help but watch.

She does not want to, she would rather not see the way _that man _looks at her betrothed. And under no circumstance, she wishes to see the way he looks in return - his long dark lashes curling just perfectly around his large eyes, as they hold an emotion she cannot verify.

When he looks at him, he… he…

The butler leans close, too close for a butler, the long, black fringe her mother had warned her about barely caressing the young Earl's shoulder, to whisper something she apparently is not allowed to hear.

She watches on as Ciel's pupils dilate when he gazes upon the person crouching beside him. When he looks at him he looks…

He looks…

**II. She has taken her part, her role; and a splendid actress she is.**

When they strut leisurely through London - shopping, on her proposition - they seem like the happiest couple imaginable.

Everything is perfect, she figures, as she lays her head momentarily on his shoulder (the pads that make up for the lack of broadness brings about a soft cushion for her head) their arms entangled while they walk close, side-by-side.

She can pretend.

She can pretend that he walks with her because he wants, not because he should - because their families decided so, because _the law_ decided so.

She can pretend.

**III. She can fight a man; a woman; the living, the death.**

She has not ceased her trainings, she needs them. She has to protect him from the things he cannot protect himself from.

She needs to, because if she does not _he_; will. And she cannot compete with him.

She cannot compete with a monster.

She thinks him evil: the way he talks, the way he walks; the way he obtains what she has fought for so desperately!

He is a monster.

**IV. He is a hunter in the dark night.**

A handsome one, she has to admit; perhaps disguised as a brave knight, she muses.

She is remembered of the tale of Snow White. When after all her loss, she had just been able to escape her very, very unfortunate destiny by a mere spiders tread, and when the Evil Queen had - even so - necessitated her dead, the Hunter had not been able to fulfil his duty.

He had taken an innocent life, an innocent heart, to replace another.

But there was no misfortunate pig in this tale.

But in truth, in truth.

That monster does not go to church, he does not pray.

He kills, he ruins.

He steals.

He had taken from her, what she loved the most; her Ciel, her one and only.  
There would be no other - not for her.

She belongs to him, and he to her. That is what she believes. And she wants to believe.

She wants to believe that there is good in all.

She sits on the stone, hard bench; her flower adorning head drooped, as she prays.

_Dear Lord, please forgive Ciel his sins; he never meant to. _

He was lured into a trap - a trap worthy of a devil's making.

Forgive him for he has sinned

She can feel the heated droplets seep from the corners of her eyes, cascading onto her white-gloved hands, tightly clasped together.

_with that man! _

**V. She has lost**

There are no rematches in this game.

It is chess, and she cannot move back, think over the steps she has taken, the lines she has crossed, change the squares from black to white.

She looks at him then, at _that man_, when it is Ciel's turn, his turn - to make a move.

"…forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

How dare he!

"I do."

She looks back, her eyes clouded more by tears than by her veil. He does not know whether they are brought forward by happiness or by despair.

That is the way she wants it to be.

"If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak…"

The smirk of the so-referred-to _best man_ is unsightly to her eyes.

"…or hereafter for ever hold his peace."

He is looking at him now, as if he expects him to say- wishes to say. Unfulfilled hope claws at the heavenly-coloured eye, favouring all that belongs in hell.

All is silent.

She smiles.

Ciel does not.

"Amen."

She has lost.

**VI. There are glances. **

When he looks at him, he looks alive.


End file.
